


Those Left Behind

by Wherenwhy



Category: Watch Dogs (Video Game)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-02
Updated: 2016-01-22
Packaged: 2018-05-11 04:01:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 12,221
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5613223
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wherenwhy/pseuds/Wherenwhy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What if Nicole was in the car with Lena, Jackson, and Aiden? What if she and Lena shared the same fate? How will Aiden and Jackson cope? How would the story be different? Will Aiden get his vengeance?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. I-1

**Author's Note:**

> I changed the timeline slightly, but it'll be easy to follow. Forgive me if this first chapter is a little choppy.

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 27, PAWNEE MEDICAL CENTER, 9TH FLOOR, 00:41.

"There are four kinds of people. There are good people. There are bad people. There are indifferent people. And worst of all, there are confused people." It was sappy, but that's what my father always told me when he was sober. I don't know how true the words of a dead drunk can be.

"But why? I looked at that man and he looked at me. I mean he nodded like people do when they drive past each other. Then he looked at you. Why did that man shoot at us?" He asked, not sounding whiny, but sounding confused and hurt. And he was hurt.

And that is what I didn't know. I don't know why that lone gunman approached on his motorcycle and shot my front tires. Not completely. No, not at all. I knew that someone was trying to get back at me for something I did. I knew I fucked with some people, but there was an unspoken 'code' among us. Among the fixers and hackers, _"You don't fuck with the family."_ That asshole, whoever he was, saw the damn kids in the car. He knew… but I didn't and I'll find him and find out why. I tried to muster up the best answer I could.

"I think that man who did what he did was confused. I don't really think that he knows why he did it." My ribs hurt from speaking. I didn't break anything but I had bruises. I could deal with those.

"Does confusion make people do bad things?" He asked, rubbing the cast on his arm. He was worse off than I was and he shouldn't have to deal with it.

"I think that sometimes when people are… confused… they lose that thing that tells them what's right and wrong. They do bad things and they think that they're doing them for the right rea—" And then the doctor burst into the room.

"Mr. Pearce…" He gestured for me to go to him. I rose from my spot at the end of Jackson's bed and walked towards him, limping. "I think that we should go into a different room." He said.

"Alright." I agreed, there was no need to discuss this in front of the kid. It was his mother and sister we were talking about. I followed him as we walked down the corridor to an empty room three doors down and across the hall. It was a small room with about the size and feel of a living room. He opened the door and turned on the lamp and I sat on one of the ugly cloth couches and he sat across from me.

"I've been a doctor for many years and all of those years still haven't taught me how to deliver news like this. I'm sorry but," He looked down at his clipboard.

"What the fuck are you saying?" I couldn't bring myself to utter the words of the worst case scenario, not even in my head.

"Nicole and Lena Pearce both expired about fifteen minutes ago." He let out a sigh.

"WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU SAYING?" I didn't realize it then, but I'd stood up and had the doctor backed up against the window. His arms were up in defense and his white knuckles and the back of his white coat were pressed against the glass. The fear became evident in the cracking of his voice.

"We did everything we could, but the physical forces of the crash caused a lot of internal bleeding. The only positive thing I could try to say is that the crash rendered them unconscious and they did not feel any pain, sir." I backed off of him and he continued speaking. "They were both in cardiac arrest when the ambulances arrived, we got them both to get a pulse again and we did all that we could, but the trauma was just so extensive that there was nothing that could save them."

"And what am I gonna tell that kid in that bed over there?"

"I'm sorry."

"You're going to have to do better than that."

"There's nothing more I can do." He said trying to slip out of the room.

"Then, get out!" I barked at him. He left in a hurry and I heard the fast rhythmic clicking of his shoes on the shiny linoleum fade into the distance. I walked to the window and tried to focus. I saw everything as a big picture now. The little drops of drizzle on the window obscured everything, even the skyscrapers in The Loop. Those little drops didn't distract me not as much as my thoughts did.

What was I going to do? I'd grieve but I have a kid to support now. I love the kid and I'll do it, of course. But I don't know anything about raising a kid. Now I got a sister and a niece to bury. And I have to keep this quiet. And it's all… my… fault. I live a dangerous life. I know that, but they didn't. This kid down the hall just lost his closest relatives. How do you tell an eight year old that?

I couldn't formulate the words. The sounds wouldn't even come together. I wished that a hole would just open up beneath me. I'd fall in and not have to speak again. I stepped out of the room and turned off the lamp from the switch on the wall. I shut the door behind me and looked again through the glass that let anyone see in. I looked out of the window again, and it was raining, steadily now.

I limped down the hallway again. This limp would go away, I knew, but what will these images and sounds and sensations. Flipping, the lines painted on the road, the orange lights of the tunnel, asphalt, and the white tiles that made up the sides of the Pawnee tunnels, the lifeless body of a little girl and an innocent woman, my hands and clothes caked with dry coagulated blood, blood on my eyelashes. And the sounds, fiberglass crunching, glass smashing, a little girl screaming, the screeching of rubber from those cowards speeding away, Jackson groaning and then the lack of noise from my sister and niece. And I smelled rubber burning, lit gasoline, hair burning, clothes burning, the blood running from my nose and the blood from…, and strangely the perfume that Nicky bought while we were up there. I felt the something warm dripping on me, no pulse from them, pain in my ribs and spine and legs, something was pinching me.

Then I snapped out of my personal Hell… and I was in front of the room he was in.

I hesitated open the door. There was no knob; all I had to do was push. IT hurt, but I shoved the door open. His eyes were focused on me. Those blue eyes were like lasers and this time I wished that I could become small. I approached him, and with some effort he sat up even straighter.

"They're dead? Aren't they?" His voice was hollow, but his eyes weren't. The windows to his soul were trembling.

"I—" My voice was weak and then it failed. My eyes made contact with his and then they focused on the shiny sky blue tiles in that room.

"Why do people die?" I looked back at him and he wasn't crying. I kept my gaze on him.

"I don't know why people die. But I know that good people like Nicky and Lena all go to Heaven."

"And why are we left here?"

I muddled my way through the answer, "Sometimes people live through thing like this because they have to live. They have to- How can I say it? They have to help each other. We go," I started pacing in front of his bed, "We go through things like this to get stronger, to be better than we were before."

"Will we be any better?"

"I hope we will." I had the sick urge to laugh hysterically. I suppressed it.

* * *

They released us at about 2:15 that morning, in the dark and rain. It was cold and we were both shivering. I knew that it was probably more emotion than it was physiological. We looked like quite a sad duo. I had a crutch and his arm was in a sling. I held the umbrella that I had to purchase from the gift shop in my free hand. I had called a cab and it arrived quickly. I was worried; we would have to go through the same tunnel to get down to Parker Square. Why the hell did Pawnee have such a stupid layout.

There were several tunnels and the last one would be the hardest. When we got to it, the cab driver wanted to make conversation as he saw the wreck. I sat up straight, and he was leaned against me with his head pressed into my arm, careful to avoid my sore ribs. He still shed no tears. Was he being strong? Was he in shock? I didn't want to speculate. We came to the pot where we were ambushed.

"That looks pretty bad over there, but I heard that some of them mighta lived." Jackson grabbed my hand and had a strong grip for an eight year old.

"Yeah, I heard that too." My voice was restraining a lot of emotion. I would have shot him, but for the child present.

"You know that's one of the worst ones I ever saw. Praise God if anyone survived that one."

"I don't want to talk about it." I was hoping that he would change the subject.

"So, is that your son?" He got the point and found something else to yak about. Jackson got even closer to me.

"He is now." And his, Jackson's, eyes shot up to mine.

"What you kidnap him or something?" He was joking, I could tell that much. I wasn't in the mood for levity, no matter how pathetic.

"I was never in the kidnapping business," I replied testily, truthfully.

"Oh." He realized that the best course of action was to shut the fuck up.

...And I realized that there was something shady about him.

* * *

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 27, NICKY'S HOUSE, 03:03

I locked the door and didn't feel secure. I hoped that he did. But how could he? The world crumbled beneath him. There was nothing solid left, nothing my perception or I could hope to grasp. No, not even noise. The rain had stopped a while ago. It was night, so the silence was multiplied. The lights that I switched on did nothing but mask the envelope of darkness. I chuckled a cold, sardonic grunt. People talked so highly of light, but light fades. Light fades and in the void we can't see.

We were both exhausted, for the adrenaline that had opened our eyes had run out. My ears were ringing. I looked down at the boy, my boy. His hair was more disheveled than usual. There was blood on his hoodie and on his T-shirt. It matched the blood on my coat. I am going to get rid off this coat and his clothes. I'm not going to wash my sister and my niece away.

"Do you want to take a shower?" I asked him.

"No, I want to sleep." His voice was small and drained. He walked to his room.

I let him undress in private in his room. He figured out how to shimmy his way out of his clothes and get into some clean pajamas. He opened the door, "Good night." And shut it again.

The silence became more silent and the darkness grew darker. I checked on him every fifteen minutes to make me feel better. He tossed and turned all night and I kept vigil until the he woke up a few hours after the sun rose behind the clouds.


	2. I-2

WKZ RADIO REPORT

Good evening and Happy Halloween, I'm Harris Haggerty with the news bulletin for today, Wednesday, October 31st. A TRAGEDY IN PAWNEE. As you know by now, mother and child were killed in a terrible accident in the Margate Tunnel in Pawnee on October 26th. Nicole Pearce, 36, and her six year old daughter, Lena, were both severely injured. They were pronounced dead at the hospital less than an hour later. Two other victims were pulled from the wreckage and suffered minor injuries. One doctor at Pawnee Medical Center, said quote, "In twenty-five years of emergency room medicine, I have never, ever seen such horrific injuries," unquote. At the entrance to the tube closest to the scene of the accident, has already been covered by stuffed animals, candles and flowers. The city council of Pawnee has erected to wooden crosses by the large heaps of now damp plush toys. The funeral arrangements have been published. A public viewing is now scheduled for Monday from noon until seven at Christ the Redeemer Church and the funeral on Tuesday morning at ten AM also at Christ the Redeemer.

In other sad news, residents of New York City, New Jersey, and Long Island are still in the dark after Superstorm Sandy made landfall on Monday. Both Con-Edison and PSE&G, the major electricity providers, are still working to restore the lights. Several electricians have even travelled from Chicago to the areas most severely impacted. And now more on the storm… It was a depression when it made landfall near Atlantic City. At her height, she sustained wind of eighty miles per hour and had gusts of over one-hundred. The governors of New York and New Jersey are both getting help from the President. The monetary damage is thought to be in the tens of billions. The complete number of fatalities in the United States is still unknown at this juncture, but it is thought to be in the dozens.

* * *

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 5th, CHURCH OF CHRIST THE REDEEMER, 13:00

I had a strange joy about this, sitting in the front pew of this church. I looked at the two boxes up there and grinned. The caskets were shut and two easels with good pictures of them were displayed. They didn't have to worry about anything anymore. And I was happy that the caskets were closed too. As asleep as they may have looked, I knew that they were dead. They were at peace.

There had been no peace for the living over the last week. The media was having a fucking field day with this. It was plastered all over the newspapers. "TRAGEDY IN PAWNEE" "MOM AND TOT DIE IN CRASH" "A PEARCE TO OUR HEARTS: A FAMILY FRACTURED" All the papers wanted to make puns and witticisms and still I was in no mood for levity. They published all sorts of editorials, but I didn't car about what they had to say. Even in the last hour, I watched all of those eyes look at the caskets and then at Jackson, and then at me, in that order always. I didn't want fifteen minutes of fame. I knew that Jacks didn't want it either. He wanted to go to school.

I wanted to send him to school, and I was going to send him the next day when I got a call from his teacher, on Sunday the 28th. Mrs. Burnett was a nice lady, stern. When I picked up the receiver, I could hear the emotion in her voice. She was sniffling as she spoke. "Mr. Pearce, I know I'm breaking protocol by calling, but I had to call you in person to give you my condolences."

"Thank you, hearing an actual human being say it is nice."

"Well, I called to say that—. It's my professional opinion that he needs a little time away from school. He's in the fourth grade, and fourth graders don't quite understand how to express—"

"I don't understand," I started, "He wants to go to school. I want him to go to school. I want him to be with his friends and I don't want him to fall behind." I even thought that I sounded demanding.

"Please," she stretched the word trying to calm me, not that I was truly upset with her. "You see, Jackson isn't the problem. He wouldn't be the problem. He's the smartest young man I have ever come across in all the years, I've been teaching. I mean that. He grasps all of the concepts so quickly. He's sensitive to how others feel. I'm afraid that the rest of the students would be the problem, because they're nowhere near as thoughtful. Most kids his age still have two or three of their grandparents, but he's lost his m—. I requested counselors to come in and train the whole student body on sensitivity."

"So what does that mean for him in the meantime?"

"It means that you I'm going to email all of the work. It takes the counselors about a week to acclimate the students."

That was bad fucking news. We had nothing to do all week, or at least he didn't. I had to find the insurance policies, and make all of the arrangements while he usually sat outside in the hallways of the institutions I had to visit.

And now, here we were, sitting in the front pews of this church watching the dozens and dozens of people who came out to show support, or grieve or gawk or balk. Their faces all started to look the same for me. They looked stiff and cold, unlike my memories of Nicky and Lena.

There was something in the back of my head, a voice, telling me to siphon money from these people. And I didn't, though it would have been easy.

The ctOS made it easy. Anywhere there was a surveillance camera, there was a ctOS connection. Somehow, Blume had wormed its way into every aspect of the lives of every citizen in this town. Bank accounts, medical records, everything on everybody was in that system.

I wasn't going to do anything like that today. That's what got me into trouble in the first place. And I wondered about Damien. He had gone quiet. They probably got him.

At least that criminal bullshit was over.

* * *

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 6th, CHURCH OF CHRIST THE REDEEMER, 09:46

"… and when I saw this tragedy on the news, I not only asked myself why this happened, but what causes these things to happen. Why do such terrible things happen to good people" the priest was well into his eulogy when my attention came back to the church, the funeral.

"People ask, 'why would God permit this? Does He really care as much as we think He should?' Well, to that I say, I don't know. But I think of God in a different way. I think of Him as a vigilant sort of God. He watches us and knows us. His end goal for all of us is justice and truth and right and good. That is why He sent His Son, Jesus, to save us from ourselves. The only problem that we all will have to grapple with is that He does it in ways that we are simply unable to understand all of the time. He works in mysterious ways. He's God and we cannot comprehend His goodness.

"The Lord giveth and He taketh away. And maybe, just maybe, it was just to remove our dear departed from this world of sin and sorrow, this world of polluted and degrades morality. They have been removed from this culture of death to eternal life. Let us remember what Paul tells in his second epistle to the Corinthians, 'To be absent from the body, is to be present with the Lord.' Let us take comfort in the fact that these two beautiful human beings are definitely at home with their God, a loving, vigilant God who will never leave or abandon them or us, the bereft. Let us remember in this seemingly unending night of weeping and sorrow that 'joy will come in the morning.'

The priest continued, "And I believe that the dawn will be bright and warm. I believe that you who are left behind will make this a wonderful dawn. You will make it warm with the people you meet, with the relationships you form, and the way you carry yourselves in the future. The daybreak will be great and God will bring warmth and love to you now and forever."

He stepped down and I felt empty. They all kept saying that the pain would fade, but it kept intensifying. I looked down at Jacks and he wasn't crying. I don't think he was going to. I read someplace that not crying was a sign of resilience. If that was the case, he was stronger than I was. My vision was blurred tears and my palms were soaked from the ones that had already fallen.

Someone would tell me later that all of the people in that church behind us were sobbing. Someone else said that the church was also filled with the cacophony of cameramen doing their job. I had blocked out all of that noise and only heard the clergyman's soft voice.

* * *

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 6th, ST. JOSEPH CEMETERY, 11:18

I didn't feel light at all. They were in the ground and I was above it, and it felt wrong. Culture of death, huh? Why couldn't I have been the one to die? I deserved it for my deeds and thoughts. I hurt people, killed people, stole, intimidated. They didn't. And my words about peace before were wrong. There would be no peace for anyone now. Now would be a very busy time for my sister and my niece.

As I think, the scavengers are trying their hardest to subsist for a bit longer, before the frost solidified the soil. They were inching their way closer to the bodies in those boxes. And they would have a feast to rival Thanksgiving in a few weeks. The worms and mites would eat into their ears and eyes and mouths. And all the time they would putrefy on their own and deteriorate with the heat and wet and freezing and thawing. And in the end they would be skeletons like any other bones in the ground, nameless, faceless, forgotten and rotten. Unremembered and uncared for. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. All of these bright flowers would die and, in the spring grass would grow over the fresh earth here leaching the nutrients they need from those beneath. Chicago would move on. The lights would stay on and burn bright. And we would be stuck trying to find a new normal. Whatever the fuck normal was.

Jackson snapped me out of my numbness, or rather, my nihilism, "What did Father Peter mean when he said 'culture of death'? I mean I don't want to die.

Where the fuck did he grasp those questions from. "I think that he meant that people are—. We're forgetting about each other as people. We're becoming more divided and relationships are dying between people. You'll see as you grow. You'll see that sometimes people forget themselves. They let their personalities die trying to—" I tried to find words.

"Trying to what?"

"Trying to do things that mean nothing to God. People try to get better things in life or get revenge, or just plain hurt other people. They stop living the way God would want them to live and only focus on the ends. The ends don't always justify the means." I didn't know how much I believed what I was saying.

"What?"

I pivoted, "Wanna play chess? I saw a table over there and I feel like beating you today."

"You wish." And I did wish. He won about three-fourths of the time. Every time I won, I felt like he was allowing me to, and he was.

We set the board up, and within ten moves I was about to lose. Something broke his concentration. "Are you getting the feeling like someone is watching us?

I looked around and saw no one. I thought someone was watching, but people had been staring at us for the past few days. I knew that the attention would move away from us. It had to.


	3. I-3

WKZ RADIO REPORT

Good evening and Happy Halloween, I'm Harris Haggerty with the news bulletin for today, Wednesday, October 31st. A TRAGEDY IN PAWNEE. As you know by now, mother and child were killed in a terrible accident in the Margate Tunnel in Pawnee on October 26th. Nicole Pearce, 36, and her six year old daughter, Lena, were both severely injured. They were pronounced dead at the hospital less than an hour later. Two other victims were pulled from the wreckage and suffered minor injuries. One doctor at Pawnee Medical Center, said quote, "In twenty-five years of emergency room medicine, I have never, ever seen such horrific injuries," unquote. At the entrance to the tube closest to the scene of the accident, has already been covered by stuffed animals, candles and flowers. The city council of Pawnee has erected to wooden crosses by the large heaps of now damp plush toys. The funeral arrangements have been published. A public viewing is now scheduled for Monday from noon until seven at Christ the Redeemer Church and the funeral on Tuesday morning at ten AM also at Christ the Redeemer.

In other sad news, residents of New York City, New Jersey, and Long Island are still in the dark after Superstorm Sandy made landfall on Monday. Both Con-Edison and PSE&G, the major electricity providers, are still working to restore the lights. Several electricians have even travelled from Chicago to the areas most severely impacted. And now more on the storm… It was a depression when it made landfall near Atlantic City. At her height, she sustained wind of eighty miles per hour and had gusts of over one-hundred. The governors of New York and New Jersey are both getting help from the President. The monetary damage is thought to be in the tens of billions. The complete number of fatalities in the United States is still unknown at this juncture, but it is thought to be in the dozens.

* * *

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 5th, CHURCH OF CHRIST THE REDEEMER, 13:00

I had a strange joy about this, sitting in the front pew of this church. I looked at the two boxes up there and grinned. The caskets were shut and two easels with good pictures of them were displayed. They didn't have to worry about anything anymore. And I was happy that the caskets were closed too. As asleep as they may have looked, I knew that they were dead. They were at peace.

There had been no peace for the living over the last week. The media was having a fucking field day with this. It was plastered all over the newspapers. "TRAGEDY IN PAWNEE" "MOM AND TOT DIE IN CRASH" "A PEARCE TO OUR HEARTS: A FAMILY FRACTURED" All the papers wanted to make puns and witticisms and still I was in no mood for levity. They published all sorts of editorials, but I didn't car about what they had to say. Even in the last hour, I watched all of those eyes look at the caskets and then at Jackson, and then at me, in that order always. I didn't want fifteen minutes of fame. I knew that Jacks didn't want it either. He wanted to go to school.

I wanted to send him to school, and I was going to send him the next day when I got a call from his teacher, on Sunday the 28th. Mrs. Burnett was a nice lady, stern. When I picked up the receiver, I could hear the emotion in her voice. She was sniffling as she spoke. "Mr. Pearce, I know I'm breaking protocol by calling, but I had to call you in person to give you my condolences."

"Thank you, hearing an actual human being say it is nice."

"Well, I called to say that—. It's my professional opinion that he needs a little time away from school. He's in the fourth grade, and fourth graders don't quite understand how to express—"

"I don't understand," I started, "He wants to go to school. I want him to go to school. I want him to be with his friends and I don't want him to fall behind." I even thought that I sounded demanding.

"Please," she stretched the word trying to calm me, not that I was truly upset with her. "You see, Jackson isn't the problem. He wouldn't be the problem. He's the smartest young man I have ever come across in all the years, I've been teaching. I mean that. He grasps all of the concepts so quickly. He's sensitive to how others feel. I'm afraid that the rest of the students would be the problem, because they're nowhere near as thoughtful. Most kids his age still have two or three of their grandparents, but he's lost his m—. I requested counselors to come in and train the whole student body on sensitivity."

"So what does that mean for him in the meantime?"

"It means that you I'm going to email all of the work. It takes the counselors about a week to acclimate the students."

That was bad fucking news. We had nothing to do all week, or at least he didn't. I had to find the insurance policies, and make all of the arrangements while he usually sat outside in the hallways of the institutions I had to visit.

And now, here we were, sitting in the front pews of this church watching the dozens and dozens of people who came out to show support, or grieve or gawk or balk. Their faces all started to look the same for me. They looked stiff and cold, unlike my memories of Nicky and Lena.

There was something in the back of my head, a voice, telling me to siphon money from these people. And I didn't, though it would have been easy.

The ctOS made it easy. Anywhere there was a surveillance camera, there was a ctOS connection. Somehow, Blume had wormed its way into every aspect of the lives of every citizen in this town. Bank accounts, medical records, everything on everybody was in that system.

I wasn't going to do anything like that today. That's what got me into trouble in the first place. And I wondered about Damien. He had gone quiet. They probably got him.

At least that criminal bullshit was over.

* * *

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 6th, CHURCH OF CHRIST THE REDEEMER, 09:46

"… and when I saw this tragedy on the news, I not only asked myself why this happened, but what causes these things to happen. Why do such terrible things happen to good people" the priest was well into his eulogy when my attention came back to the church, the funeral.

"People ask, 'why would God permit this? Does He really care as much as we think He should?' Well, to that I say, I don't know. But I think of God in a different way. I think of Him as a vigilant sort of God. He watches us and knows us. His end goal for all of us is justice and truth and right and good. That is why He sent His Son, Jesus, to save us from ourselves. The only problem that we all will have to grapple with is that He does it in ways that we are simply unable to understand all of the time. He works in mysterious ways. He's God and we cannot comprehend His goodness.

"The Lord giveth and He taketh away. And maybe, just maybe, it was just to remove our dear departed from this world of sin and sorrow, this world of polluted and degrades morality. They have been removed from this culture of death to eternal life. Let us remember what Paul tells in his second epistle to the Corinthians, 'To be absent from the body, is to be present with the Lord.' Let us take comfort in the fact that these two beautiful human beings are definitely at home with their God, a loving, vigilant God who will never leave or abandon them or us, the bereft. Let us remember in this seemingly unending night of weeping and sorrow that 'joy will come in the morning.'

The priest continued, "And I believe that the dawn will be bright and warm. I believe that you who are left behind will make this a wonderful dawn. You will make it warm with the people you meet, with the relationships you form, and the way you carry yourselves in the future. The daybreak will be great and God will bring warmth and love to you now and forever."

He stepped down and I felt empty. They all kept saying that the pain would fade, but it kept intensifying. I looked down at Jacks and he wasn't crying. I don't think he was going to. I read someplace that not crying was a sign of resilience. If that was the case, he was stronger than I was. My vision was blurred tears and my palms were soaked from the ones that had already fallen.

Someone would tell me later that all of the people in that church behind us were sobbing. Someone else said that the church was also filled with the cacophony of cameramen doing their job. I had blocked out all of that noise and only heard the clergyman's soft voice.

* * *

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 6th, ST. JOSEPH CEMETERY, 11:18

I didn't feel light at all. They were in the ground and I was above it, and it felt wrong. Culture of death, huh? Why couldn't I have been the one to die? I deserved it for my deeds and thoughts. I hurt people, killed people, stole, intimidated. They didn't. And my words about peace before were wrong. There would be no peace for anyone now. Now would be a very busy time for my sister and my niece.

As I think, the scavengers are trying their hardest to subsist for a bit longer, before the frost solidified the soil. They were inching their way closer to the bodies in those boxes. And they would have a feast to rival Thanksgiving in a few weeks. The worms and mites would eat into their ears and eyes and mouths. And all the time they would putrefy on their own and deteriorate with the heat and wet and freezing and thawing. And in the end they would be skeletons like any other bones in the ground, nameless, faceless, forgotten and rotten. Unremembered and uncared for. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. All of these bright flowers would die and, in the spring grass would grow over the fresh earth here leaching the nutrients they need from those beneath. Chicago would move on. The lights would stay on and burn bright. And we would be stuck trying to find a new normal. Whatever the fuck normal was.

Jackson snapped me out of my numbness, or rather, my nihilism, "What did Father Peter mean when he said 'culture of death'? I mean I don't want to die.

Where the fuck did he grasp those questions from. "I think that he meant that people are—. We're forgetting about each other as people. We're becoming more divided and relationships are dying between people. You'll see as you grow. You'll see that sometimes people forget themselves. They let their personalities die trying to—" I tried to find words.

"Trying to what?"

"Trying to do things that mean nothing to God. People try to get better things in life or get revenge, or just plain hurt other people. They stop living the way God would want them to live and only focus on the ends. The ends don't always justify the means." I didn't know how much I believed what I was saying.

"What?"

I pivoted, "Wanna play chess? I saw a table over there and I feel like beating you today."

"You wish." And I did wish. He won about three-fourths of the time. Every time I won, I felt like he was allowing me to, and he was.

We set the board up, and within ten moves I was about to lose. Something broke his concentration. "Are you getting the feeling like someone is watching us?

I looked around and saw no one. I thought someone was watching, but people had been staring at us for the past few days. I knew that the attention would move away from us. It had to.


	4. I-4

WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 12th, 10:34

I'm officially back on the grid, and I must admit that I missed it. It is said that we, those who were on the other side of the internet, were the underbelly, the scum, the saviors, the watchdogs, or the balancers of cyberspace. The title depended on who you asked or what the participants did. Some of us 'helped' society by trying to find weaknesses in our infrastructure of the government or corporations. Some of the people down here were scum who committed crimes for the sheer hell of it. There were some people down here, like me, who had mixed goals. We did what we thought was right, but we would use any means at our disposal. There were relatively few of us down here like me. We were driven by an urge to make something wrong, right.

I, however, am at a disadvantage. I still have a kid to support, and with the kind of hacker I am now, I am not in front of a computer. I will be out investigating, getting to the bottom of my mystery. WHO DID THIS AND WHY? Who paid him?

I wanted the answers to these questions, but I had to be careful in my pursuit. I dropped him off at school and picked him up every day and that was not going to change. In a crooked line of work like mine, most of us had to operate in the night, no shadows. I had to work in the sunshine in front of the world, or, at least the prying eyes and inquiring minds of Chicago.

Chicago had done something to lighten my load, though. The Central Operating System, or ctOS, made getting to people through a computer screen that much easier. A couple of lines of code and I was in. Traffic lights, bank accounts, names, social security numbers, school records, marriage licenses, birth and death certificates, surveillance cameras, were all a few clicks away at my desktop screen or on my smartphone. Blume had created a monster that crept into every aspect of life.

The first thing I did was shore ourselves up financially. That was easy enough' ctOS invited me into every little detail about every person. I made sure to do it in a way that nobody really got hurt. I would find the 'victim', and look at the money in their checking account. I would create an error in the bank system that doubled the money in the account. So if the 'victim' had $20,000 in his account, I would make it $40,000. I would take half of the new amount and put it into my 'account' and give the other half back to the 'victim'. The bank couldn't see the trail and the person who was used lost nothing. Even if the bank found out about the error, the money was insured.

But with the money transfers came everyone's dirty little secrets. I became privy to everyone's lifestyles. Anyone who led a secret life was known. All the bytes were at my fingertips. Why was Blume collecting all of this information? I don't know.

My phone was and is the key to everything, not just the mint. It is my only ally for now.

* * *

17:59

The 12/12/12 concert is tonight. The whole thing was happening in Brooklyn, at that new stadium. I don't give a fuck about it, but Jackson was excited. All of those pop stars were going to be singing, trying to raise money for the relief efforts after that hurricane. I, as I promised to myself, had kept life as normal for him as possible. I picked him up and now he was doing his homework.

Since it was a special evening, I decided to order pizza. It's not like my cooking was spectacular, but it was coming along. I wasn't setting off the smoke detectors anymore.

* * *

20:41

The concert was under way.

Then, the screen went black. Jackson, who was sitting on the rug, looked back at me. All I did was shrug. I didn't turn of the TV, though the music was so godawful that I wish I could. I wouldn't because all the kids love this noise.

Then the picture started to look grainy, and a face appeared. Now, when I say face I mean that it was a semi-transparent and ghostly visage. And whoever it was, was wearing a mask. His voice was altered and made to sound lower. It was only a semitone away from being a murmur.

"The man on the twenty dollar bill said, 'eternal vigilance by the people is the price of liberty,'. It seems that you have forgotten it. We are DEDSEC," and the letters that spelt it appeared on the screen, "… and we have not. The people were supposed to be the guardians. They were supposed to be the ones to watch and protect and now you have handed that power over. We will show you the proof. This is not the last time you'll see us."

The television went back to the concert, and before he could gaze back at me I told I said that I didn't know what just happened.

* * *

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 13th, 09:19

He was at school and I was at home, making the transactions that kept us afloat. The mortgage was paid off, due to a computer 'error' that said that the house was nonexistent.

I jumped a little when the television turned on without my intervention.

The screen stayed black and then some lettering just the same as the DEDSEC announcement.

DEDSEC IS AFTER YOU.

I didn't know what to make of the message.

OPEN YOUR EYES. OPEN YOUR WORLD.

THEY KNOW MORE THAN YOU THINK.

I AM BADBOY17.

And then my phone started ringing in my pocket. I reached for it grabbed it and it said that I was receiving a call from BADBOY17. I got the sudden urge to press ignore, but I suppressed it.

"Hello?"

"I see you got my message." The voice of the mysterious caller was altered with some sort of software to make it sound much deeper. That was bad fucking news because, let's face it, I couldn't even determine the gender of the caller.

"Look, I didn't answer this phone call to waste my time on bullshit. Who are you and what do you want?" I was blunt.

"Someone's impatient. Patience is a virtue." The voice was toying with me and it was fucking pissing me off.

"What do you want?"

"Okay, okay, look at you television." And with that it came on, and the voice started speaking again. "You see nothing right now. Yes?"

"No there's nothing on the screen." That changed in an instant. It went to what looked like surveillance video from inside of the tunnel where the accident happened. The camera faced north, that is to say that it looked into the cars from that were heading southbound from the front and only saw the red taillights of those going north, deeper into Pawnee. It, the video, was sped up judging by the time stamp at the bottom left. The cars all passed by quickly, but it stopped at 23:34:03.

"This is what I want to show you, watch the time stamp at the bottom." The voice must have pressed play.

The video resumed and you can see my black SUV enter from the top left of the screen and then suddenly disappear. The owner of the voice looped the video back and I looked down at the time stamp. Lo and fucking behold it skipped abruptly from 23:34:03 to 02:00:00. My car was seen entering and then the skid marks of the crash appear out of nowhere. I almost dropped my phone.

"What happened to those two and a half hours of video?" The voice asked into my ear. "Time doesn't just vanish into nothing."

"No, it doesn't." Whoever this was had my interest now. "But how do I know that you didn't just edit this?"

"You don't but you know this, something was fishy about that whole thing. For some reason Blume got rid of that video."

"Or shut that camera off in the first place." I thought out loud.

"Exactly." The voice hung up.

I was going to save the contact into my phone and it was already stored.

* * *

15:32

It was awkward but I had to do it. Did this kid believe in Santa or not? I knew that I got him presents every year and said that they were from me, but were the presents that were under the tree (damn I need to put one up) from Nick of from Saint Nick? When he got into the car after school, I tried my best to figure out what he thought.

"So, Jacks…" I trailed off, and looked at the road even harder.

"Yeah."

"How do you feel about Santa?"

"What do you mean?"

Dammit, he was making this hard. "I mean…uh…do you like the presents he brings every year?"

"I already know that no one comes down the chimney and that there's no old man living at the North Pole with a bunch of elves" He sighed as if every kid knew about Santa.

"Thank you." He didn't know how much easier he made my life, "So what do you want for Christmas?"

"I can't think of anything that you can get."

"Nothing?" I asked again

"No, nothing." He reiterated.


	5. I-5

HOME (IT'S NOT NICKY'S ANYMORE), DECEMBER 25th, 08:18

I suppose that I understand why he didn't wake up at some crazy hour. You see, I always used to come over on Christmas Eve and spend the night always to be woken up at 6 AM by the sounds of little feet hitting the floors and running for the Christmas tree. This year there was only one thing under the tree. I made a book coupon with some construction paper that told him that he would be granted any three wishes that he could think of. And I knew that it wouldn't be that much. Most uncles got bonds for their nephews.

He emerged from his room gave a tentative wave and a grunt that sounded like the words 'Merry Christmas' being put through a blender. I tried my best to sound cheerful, but I couldn't even convince myself.

Christmas isn't supposed to be silent.

I didn't know what to do with myself. We used to have an itinerary. They'd play with their presents while we made breakfast and had eggnog (I always put a little Southern Comfort in mine). After breakfast we'd all watch _Miracle on 34_ _th_ _Street_ and then _It's a Wonderful Life_.

It's not a wonderful life anymore. Not here. Right now it is somewhere between shitty and abysmal, and that's saying something considering the life I used to live. I have no appetite for criminality anymore. It got me into this mess and now only a life on the straight and narrow is worthwhile. I'll do it for Lena and Nicky. And more importantly I'll do it for the kid that pulled through.

I don't even know why I got back on the grid a couple of weeks ago, but—

"Uncle Aiden."

"Yeah, kiddo." I had only realized that he'd gotten dressed.

"Nothing." He said.

"It's not nothing. What is it?"

"I just don't know how people can do such evil things."

"Trust me, I don't either." Depravity wasn't new to me, but the depths of it always surprised me though I would never say so or even let it show. His next statement seemed to materialize out of the nothingness that was this house.

"Please don't kill the man who did this to us." His gaze was serious and his youth was lost on me. I felt the strong urge to obey. That urge, no matter how much I tried to suppress it bubble up in me and I spoke before I could control it.

"I won't. I promise I won't."

Shit. Why the fuck did I say that. I wanted this guy dead. You know, that would have been a damn good Christmas present for me, that man's body stiff with the stillness of death. And now I just promised the kid that I wouldn't. I already broke too many promises.

"Are we safe now?" His gaze still was staring, _still_ was staring through me.

"We are safe. I assure you that we are safer than we have ever been before. I will never ever, ever put you in danger and I will protect you in everyway I can."

The doorbell rang. I rose from my seat and broke the gaze of my interrogator. It was, of course, Clara, and I opened it without hesitation.

"Joyeux Noël!" She said with glee.

"Merry Christmas to you, too." I faked enthusiasm.

I shut the door behind her. She removed her coat and walked deeper into the room.

"I—" she started, before she was interrupted, by a brick that came through my front window.

"What the f—" Now I was interrupted by a swift kick to the door and the entrance of a masked man. My hand was on my holster. Jackson got behind me, and Clara got beside me to make sure my nephew was completely covered.

The man was shorter than me. His mask covered his face completely, and he wore a hooded cape which went down all the way to his knees. All of the clothes underneath were black and he had black studs in his ears. He had prison pallor, and had almost a sickly gray complexion. That being said he couldn't have been scrawny because he just took down a fucking door with a single kick. Clara looked as if she had her hand on her phone in her pocket. She was probably calling 911 or something.

"Where is he, motherfucker?" The masked man asked.

"You don't barge into my house and demand anything." I never yelled when Jackson was in the room, even if a man just broke into our house. "And there's no need for that kind of language."

"I don't give a shit." He snapped at me.

"Clearly." I said.

"Where the fuck is BADBOY17?" The masked figure asked.

"I don't know what you're talking about." That wasn't a complete lie.

"BADBOY17 is nearby and I think you're hiding him."

"There is no one of that name or alias here." That was true. I didn't know who BADBOY17 was.

"Well, I'm not leaving until—"

And what happened next scared me more than a brick flying through my window or my door being kicked in. I felt something stir behind me.

"Did you come here alone?" Jackson said with a small, but even voice. He got from behind me in the blink of an eye. I was stupefied for a second. He was pacing in front of me like a lawyer, a prosecutor, giving an opening statement.

"Get behind me Jackson." I pleaded with him.

He ignored me, and my desperate tone and continued, "If you really wanted to find this person, you would have brought somebody with you."

"What the— What is this kid talkin—"

"And if that person was really here, they would have escaped through the back door or from any of the dozen or so windows by now, or confronted you by now."

"Fuc—"

"You were already asked not to be vulgar, there is a lady present."He declared. I was still dumbfounded.

"What makes you think that I won't kill you right now?"

"Because I know it. You have a little brother who's my age." The intruder cringed. How did Jackson know all of this?

"How do you know—"

"His name's Mark and he attends a private school with a lot of strict teachers, and so did you. I can tell by the way the curses are coming out of your mouth. You lower your voice ever so slightly as if you're still afraid of being caught by the teacher. Oh another thought just hit me about the BADBOY situation. If you think even harder about all of the things I said, do you really think that throwing a brick through the window was the best course of action. If 'BADBOY17' was really here he would have disappeared the second that glass broke." Jackson made his way all the way to the couch when he had finished his observations. He sat on the couch with a very smug and accomplished look adorning his features, our features.

Clara took her phone out of her pocket. I nodded and she called and started speaking with a dispatcher.

The man threw his hands up in exasperation and surrender I used that to pounce on him. I put him in a headlock. He was gasping for air and I find that when people can't breathe they become very honest.

"Who do you work for?" I asked ever so gently as I applied some pressure to his windpipe.

"DEDSEC," he managed to gasp.

"Who sent you?"

"I'm just a fixer I take jobs."

"Oh, I see," I started sardonically, "So that makes it okay to break windows and kick down doors."

"No, sir." His voice diminished even further.

"Sir?" I get snarky when I'm pissed I guess, "I go from 'motherfucker' to 'sir'?"

I started to hear sirens in the distance.

"It sounds like your ride is coming." Clara seemed relieved to hear the sirens.

After a few moments the cops walked in through where my door used to be. They arrested him and I stood in the living room, growing acutely aware of how quickly the cold of outside could suck all of the heat out of the room.

"Kid," I started, calmly, "You are so grounded. He could have killed you."

"He wasn't going to. I saw just as well as you did that he wouldn't harm a fly."

"How old is he, again?" Clara asked.

I turned to answer her. "Too young for that little stunt he just pulled."

I turned again to find him under the Christmas tree.

He looked quite smug as he read the 'coupons'. "Any three wishes, huh?"

"Yes," I saw the gears turning.

"I was that I was ungrounded."

I had to oblige.

"I wish you would tell me what that whole thing was about."

"I don't know." That was the best I could do to fulfill that wish.

"I wish you would tell me who BADBOY17 is.

"I don—" I was cut off.

"IT'S ME." Clara near shouted, before putting her hands over her mouth.

"Aiden, I—"

Now I cut her off. "Jackson could you leave the room, please?"

He left and went to some indistinct corner of the house.

"What the fuck do you mean you're BADBOY17? Who are you" I took a step towards her.

"Look," she started, and I was eager to hear the rest, "I know that you are the Fox and I know that you did the Merlaut job and I don't care about that. But you pissed _zome_ serious people off when you did it."

"I asked you who you are." I could feel my teeth grinding against each other.

"You don't know it, but I think you exposed some shit that no one could have anticipated. They need you dead or at least silent. So they targeted you and your family. There's something in the shadows. Something I just can't put together yet. I need you're help. I went around the grid and he, the man who just broke in, must have followed me. He said he worked for DEDSEC which makes me even more suspicious."

"I don't often take leaps of faith," I started, "Faith is bullshit. Faith is following without anything tangible. But trust is different, but no better. It's belief in people. I'm going to have to trust you. We're going to have to trust each other. I know it's a very existentialist way to think, but that's how it is."

"Existentialism is the most French way to think." She took a closer step to me.

"Oh, is it—"

I was interrupted for about the millionth time today. This time is was a loud, resounding boom that rattled the panes of the windows that weren't shattered. The floor shook. There was also a brilliant flash of white light that filled the room and dissipated to a soft red-orange light like that of a sunset. Jackson came running from the kitchen, "It came from next door!"

Clara and I backed up from each other, we just realizing that our faces were only about six inches apart. Jackson ran out first and I followed him out of the hole where the door once was. When we ran out we saw how the Clara's house was on fire. The flames were rising out of the windows on both stories. A crackling noise was coming from the house followed by a large thud. The windows shattered out and shards of glass and embers came flying out. Small tongues of flame were making their way up the siding of the house. Clara's face would accompanied the entry to the word 'rage' in the dictionary.

I suppose that I didn't know that a crowd of our neighbors had gathered until I realized that someone had wrapped a blanket around Jacks.

And then my house fucking exploded too…

Someone was after us, and it was proven now. Jacks had that same look he had that night in October.

"I can't go to school anymore, can I?" He asked.

"No, there are people after us." I answered.

"Even me?" He asked.

I had to be blunt. "Especially you."

"There's no reason for us to stay here. We have to leave." There were sirens off in the distance. We walked around the corner and we picked a random car. My car wasn't safe anymore. So, I used my phone to unlock and start a car. We got in.

"Now what?" I asked, looking at the time on the car's radio, 11:18 AM. Three hours.

"I think I know of a good place," Clara said.

CONCLUDE PART ONE


	6. II-1

STOLEN CAR, CHRISTMAS DAY, 11:44

The smoke from the twin fires was fading from the rear-view mirror of the car I had to steal. There was nothing I could do, and I never, ever like to feel helpless. Two explosions in the span of five minutes with all of the other houses untouched seemed fishy. I didn't have time to contemplate it now.

I readjusted my focus to the kid in the back seat. He was looking out of the window completely horrified.

"The truth is, Jackson," I mustered up the courage to speak and started, though I didn't know where or how I would finish, "Life gets in the way of living. I mean, how can I—Things happen that we can't foresee. Things sometimes get in the way of what we plan. Right now the plan is to make sure that we," I glanced over to the passenger seat at Clara, "All three of us are safe. And we have to stick together, or we'll be compromised."

"Where are you driving us?" He asked.

"He's driving us to a place we can hide," Clara interjected, "Take the next right."

"Where am I driving us?" I asked curiously, the words of the question making me chuckle inside.

She didn't answer. In fact all she did was give directions for the next hour. There was something interesting about the whole thing. She wasn't using a GPS, and she knew where to turn, where to merge, where to exit. It seemed rehearsed, and what's worse, is that for some reason, I knew vaguely where we were headed.

We came to a place down under an overpass. It was shady and shitty. There were old, dim factories whose windows were either shattered or boarded up with tattered wood on one side. In front of those old buildings there were dozens of pieces of sheet metal, some rusted and others painted over.

Across the dilapidated road was a overgrown field. It surpassed my understanding how in this bleak December the brown, withered grasses could remain so tall. I looked over and Clara and she nodded in full knowledge of what I was going to say. I put the car in park and turned it off.

"We have to walk through that," I said, even though it sounded to me like a question.

We all got out of the car and closed the doors. I took the keys with me, knowing that it was futile. That car was going to be stripped in a matter of hours. I looked again to make sure that the other two were with me.

"Single file," I said.

Jackson's face was frozen and he walked as if someone was

I walked into the grass and it made a loud crunching sound. There were fallen leaves in the grass, though I saw no trees or evidence that trees ever existed here. I was right to insist on single file, for on both sides of the path I had started to make there were dozens upon dozens of hypodermic needles, some with some of the blood still in them, all used for heroin. There was shit, actual human shit in the grass as well. Most of it had frozen over in the cold of the last few months. We came across a wet, stinking mattress that had been exposed to the elements, with rancid blankets bunched a few feet away.

The grass started to thin and shorten as we walked, treading over junk and junk food wrappers. It thinned further and without my think about it I realized we had reached the side of a small creek. In front of us was a small, steel bridge that was built upon a turntable. Presently the bridge was not connected to the land at either end and was turned parallel to the shore. Across the creek seemed to be an island of considerable size. The island which may have been a mile in circumference, housed what seemed to be many shipping containers and some warehouses. There were no cars, or indeed, any ways of proving that there was any human contact with the land after those buildings were constructed.

"This is the place where the bunker is rumored to be." Clara said wistfully. "I've regretted not investigating this place for myself.

"So this place might not be real?" I asked a little bothered.

"It's real." Jackson said, the horror that was on his face subsided.

"I can't be so certain." I said.

"I am sure it's real." Clara added.

She reached for her phone and I reached for mine to see if this bridge was connected to the ctOS.

"Câlisse, my phone's dead," she muttered, swearing, or at least I think she did. She didn't say it in English so I didn't care.

"Mine isn't," I said, seeing that the bridge was, indeed, run by one of the easily hacked servers of the ctOS. I pushed pound sign on my keypad and the bridge started to turn, with a grunt and a moderate screech that could not have been heard by the transients in the other side of the grass. It took about half a minute to turn so that it was crossable.

It was a truss bridge. The struts and joints were rusted, but the rivets were still held comfortable in place. The deck, of concrete, had brown lines across it were the water had formed streams across. The bits of paint that had not been eaten away by the years of neglect and subjection to the Chicago elements proved that it must have been a brilliant shade of red like the Golden Gate. Upon closer inspection I could see a set a train tracks on it with the now brown weeds that grew in the cracks by the wood ties.

We started to cross it, and, contrary to my expectations it did not even creak under our feet or over our heads. We made it completely across and saw that the island was empty. I turned around to make completely sure that we weren't followed repositioned the bridge. We walked on the continuing railroad. There were some decrepit old cars about a dozen yards in where the windows were intact, but covered in dirt. I wiped some of the material off and looked inside. The keys were in the ignition and the radios were still inside the console. I walked to the driver's side door and it opened without me having to hack it. The inside of the car was clean, and had the still had the new car smell in it, though it was faint.

I stood up out of the car and watched as Jackson was looking around. The gears were turning in his head. I didn't dare to ask him what he was thinking because sooner or later he would say what it was. Clara was looking down at her phone and before I could ask her anything she walked away towards the other end of the island. I put in my earpiece, knowing that she was going to call.

In my ear, she said, "I found the entrance to this bunker."

"So it is real?" I asked with a mixture of curiosity, disbelief, and sarcasm.

"I told you, but it seems that there are four sources of electricity for this place. One of them is switched on, but you have to find the other three and flip the switches."

I accessed the ctOS and followed the path that it laid out for the first of the switches.

"Stay put, Jackson," I said, knowing that he wouldn't have followed me anyway. He was smarter than his uncle and nodded affirmatively at my command for him to stay on terra firma. I handed him the other headset I had and he put it on seeming to know how it was done. He tested it and it worked for both of us.

This switch was located on the roof of the building nearest to the bridge. There was a cherry picker near the facade and I used it with ctOS to lift me halfway up the brick wall. There was a ledge at about shoulder height that stretched from where the cherry picker was to a section of a lower roof on the same building. I shimmied across it and landed safely on that place on the roof. I turned around again and saw the unmistakable look of awe on his face.

"How did you-" He stammered.

"I don't know how out of shape you think I am," I jested, before getting serious, " Look, I'm going to have to go up in a place you can't see me. I'll be back in five minutes, I swear."

He only nodded in understanding.

I walked on and the circuit breaker box came into my view it was on another roof that was connected to mine by a reinforced duct. I walked gingerly across the duct making quite sure to not make any sudden moves. I made it across and found that the breaker was enclosed in a fence with a chain link gate in front of it. Much to my surprise the gate was not locked. I lifted the lever and turned the power on. There was a substantial rumble with a crackling followed by a low sustained hum that reverberated.

"Aiden," Clara said, "That was quick."

"When it comes to business there's no need to take too long."

I did the reverse of all of the steps I had taken and was back on solid ground. That was only one out of three. My phone told me that the next circuit breaker was was a couple of hundred yards away.

Jackson and I reached it and this one was a greater puzzle. It seemed that the box was tucked behind some shipping containers. I had to climb up and over several of the rusted containers and jump down some more on the other side of what was like an urban pyramid. I flipped the second switch. Again there was a rumble that only faded into a hum.

"Okay," Clara started, "The lights are on now."

"How much do you work out, Uncle Aiden?" Jackson's wonderment was more amusing than I would like to admit, partly because I've slowed down quite a bit in the last few years.

"I exercise when I can." I answered as I was making my way back to him.

"That must be a lot," he answered.

When I reached him again and he grabbed my bicep and felt how firm they were. He compared them to his.

"I want arms and legs like yours." He said as we started to make our way to the last of the generators.

"Well, this is easily achievable, if and only if, your willing to work for it. It won't happen overnight but, I promise if you work on it the same way you work on your other subjects you'll be stronger than me. Well, stronger than I." I don't know what made my inner English teacher pop up.

"Stronger than you, huh." He sounded skeptical.

"I guarantee it."

"So there's no more contact with the outside world?" He asked in a wild and sad change of subject.

"No, it's not safe," I had to start honestly, "There are some evil people who are paying and being paid just to come after you and me and Clara. And I want you to know this," I stopped in my tracks and squared to look him in the eyes, "It's not your fault and it was never your fault. Sometimes people go astray and they lose perspective as to what's right and wrong. The bad people who are after us are really just sad, lost people. They are after you for nothing that you said or did. Understand?"

I rose again.

"I understand, but why us?"

Now I lied, "I don't know. And that's the scariest thing. That is one of the things I just don't know."

We did the only thing we could and resumed the silence, though this time it was not in awe of me but in dread of the days ahead.

The third fuse was way up on a taller building at the end of the island opposite the bridge. I had to climb over some containers and even ride in one to reach the fifth story of the structure. The fuse was again behind an opened gate. I flipped the switch and for the third time there was a rumble, but this time it was louder and the whole island rumbled and quaked.

* * *

We took container lift that was modified to give us access to the 'bunker'.

Bunker wasn't really the best word. The space was expansive. When the door opened on the modified shipping container we were greeted with at least four stories of open space. The four brick walls were lined with walkways. It was a warehouse that had been transformed into something else. From our vantage, we were on the third level of the catwalks. Down in the space there was a giant monitor made up of smaller screens which could be controlled. There were several servers behind the screens and behind the chairs set up in front of the computers.

The second tier had many rooms along the wall. They were labelled. Jackson ran down the stairs and peaked into all of them. He was still wearing his earpiece so I could hear everything he was saying to me.

"There's a kitchen, with big stove, like in the back of a restaurant!"

A door slammed, running huffing, "A bathroom, with a big shower like the ones a public pool. And there's a bedroom and another bedroom, and another. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, twelve bedrooms."

"You can only pick one, kid." I reminded him.

"Fine." He huffed, feigning disappointment. He ran downstairs to Clara and I followed him.

She was seated looking contemplatively at the screens, all of which only had the local television channels.

"What now?" They both asked simultaneously.

**Author's Note:**

> Please leave a comment and tell me what you think.


End file.
